Sorbets as Functional Food Products, Unexplored Food Matrices, Their Challenges, and Advancements

Abstract

Functional foods and beverages are becoming one of the leading food products on the global market today. This is predominately due to the consumer, industry and research-related interests in the use of food-derived products for the management of several chronic conditions. The diversity of currently available functional food products also provides an opportunity for the use of fruit-based sorbets as a carrier of functional ingredients. Therefore, the aim of this literature review is to explore the use of sorbets as a functional food product, which is one commercial method that can be utilized to provide health benefits, extend the shelf life of foods, and preserve nutrients and improve taste. Firstly, we provide an overview of sorbets as a functional food matrix, their development and implications for the absorption of functional ingredients in humans. We discuss the developmental considerations of functional foods, such as the technical conditions and physicochemical and organoleptic properties through which functional foods can provide beneficial health effects. These include product stability, metabolism of the functional food ingredient, its interactions with the food matrix and limitations related to its production. There is a paucity of clinical data that investigate the long-term health effects of products claiming additional functional benefits. Given the extensive potential benefits of functional bioactive food compounds and their heavy prevalence in the market, extensive research and further regulation is needed to ensure health recommendations for large populations in longitudinal clinical studies warranting any functional claim.

Factors Affecting the Quality of Probiotic Plant-Based Frozen Desserts—The Authors’ Own Experiments in the Context of the Literature

“…Recent studies have shown positive results regarding the growth and survival of probiotics in frozen desserts, especially in relation to the cold shock response due to increases in the ability to adapt to the low temperature of the final product during storage [16,18,19,22,103,112,119].…”

“…The circumstances of production and preservation of these products need to be surveyed as well [20]. The scientific papers on challenges in the production of probiotic frozen desserts [21] and the issue of probiotic viability in frozen food products [22] are available in the current literature.…”